TENTH WORLD FAMILY DAY
A colourful and sunny Colle Don Bosco, with many voices, songs and many children and young people: this is how it appeared to those who attended the 10th World Family Day on Sunday, the 26th June 2022.
The event was born as a result of the wish of Pope John Paul II in 1994 and is now in its tenth edition. This year, as requested by Pope Francis, it took an even more splendid form because it took on a widespread and localised character in the individual dioceses and Shrines.
The Salesian Family (represented by the Salesian Cooperators, ADMA and Mary of Nazareth Contemplative Fraternity) which has always played a leading role in family education organised it together with the Family Forum Associations and the Archdiocese of Turin.
From the dawn of the first day, 80 volunteers gathered to set up the welcome arrangements for the 500 families of the diocese who began their day with a mini pilgrimage from the Pratone up to the Basilica. Divided into small groups, consecrated men and women, lay people, young people and adults walked along the paths trodden by Don Bosco, praying the rosary and entrusting to Mary the situations of joy and suffering that many are experiencing.
In a packed Upper Basilica, everyone gathered at 10.30 am for the Holy Mass celebrated by the Archbishop of Turin and the Bishop of Susa, Msgr. Roberto Repole, and concelebrated by Fr. Mario Aversano, director of the Office for the Pastoral Care of the Family, Fr. Alejandro Guevara, World Spiritual Animator of ADMA and Fr. Tiziano Baracco of the Salesian Novitiate. Fr. Michele Molinar, provincial vicar, coordinated the celebration. “This Gospel tells us that there are not static families but dynamic families,” the archbishop emphasized in his homily; “And this dynamism also concerns their spiritual life. In the same way, our families are one of the privileged places for the proclamation of the Gospel with a style that does not force but fully respects the freedom of the other. Finally, our families are following the Lord to the extent that the spouses, parents and children look at each other and love each other, knowing, however, that no one can ever take the place of Jesus Christ.”
The celebration continued in the afternoon with the testimonies of many entities of the diocese: SERMIG, New Families, the Salesian Cooperators of the Opera Michele Rua of Turin, the Pope John XXIII Community, Marriage Encounter and Forum of Family Associations. They all stressed the beauty of being a family today, as well as the challenges they have to face and those that await them, with a common thread running through all the experiences, that only together and only by following God can one succeed in this journey which is not always easy and sometimes tiring.
Finally, we cannot forget the ‘age-old’ games that delighted the children, with their parents and grandparents, organised by the ‘Animating’ group.
At the home of Don Bosco and Mamma Margaret, under the gaze of Mary, the families shared a day of joy, hope and prayer, rediscovering themselves as families on the move and entrusting their hopes, worries and expectations to them.
